Unravelling Secondary Students’ Challenges in Digital Literacy: a Gender Perspective

The use of the Internet to learn involves complex cognitive activities. Educational researchers claim more attention in studying the nature of students’ challenges when using digital information for learning purposes. Our research investigated in depth the challenges that secondary students face when solving web information-problem tasks. We thoroughly analysed how forty secondary students (18 girls and 22 boys) solved a scholar task using web information. The students’ actions on the computer screen were logged. Findings showed specific difficulties in solving digital tasks due to when (1) typing appropriate search terms, and when (2) selecting reliable and useful results from a “search engine results page”, which hinders the correct finding and understanding of web information needed to solve the digital task. In addition, the participants had a lack of reflection regarding the different actions to solve the digital task. Furthermore, our findings revealed that gender was not associated with differences in digital attainment

Completion strategy or emphasis manipulation? Task support for teaching information problem solving

While most students seem to solve information problems effortlessly, research shows that the cognitive skills for effective information problem solving are often underdeveloped. Students manage to find information and formulate solutions, but the quality of their process and product is questionable. It is therefore important to develop instruction for fostering these skills. In this research, a 2-h online intervention was presented to first-year university students with the goal to improve their information problem solving skills while investigating effects of different types of built-in task support. A training design containing completion tasks was compared to a design using emphasis manipulation. A third variant of the training combined both approaches. In two experiments, these conditions were compared to a control condition receiving conventional tasks without built-in task support. Results of both experiments show that students' information problem solving skills are underdeveloped, which underlines the necessity for formal training. While the intervention improved students’ skills, no differences were found between conditions. The authors hypothesize that the effective presentation of supportive information in the form of a modeling example at the start of the training caused a strong learning effect, which masked effects of task support. Limitations and directions for future research are presented

Study of the viability and competitiveness of Atmosphere-Breathing Electric Propulsion (ABEP) systems for Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) missions through the comparative with propulsion systems commonly used today.

This project intends to define the viability of Atmosphere-Breathing Electric Propulsion (ABEP) systems in Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) missions and its competitiveness against other drag-compensating propulsion systems commonly used today. In order to evaluate this, the technological evolution required for the ABEP to be competitive, both in a technological and an economical point of view, with its most directly competitors will be defined.There are a lot of opportunities in the Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) market due to a lot of benefits. However, one of the main challenges is the aerodynamic drag resistance, stronger than in any other range of orbits’ altitudes. That causes fast decay which is translated in very short mission life-times or the requirement of a propulsion system in order to compensate the drag force. This challenge can be turned up to an opportunity if the rarefied air present at these altitudes is used as a propellant for an electric propulsion system in order to compensate the drag force. This project evaluates the physical viability but also the competitiveness of Atmosphere Breathing Electric Propulsion (ABEP) systems by performing a comparison on the performances of current ABEP systems with other common propulsion systems suitable for this mission too. It includes also an analytical study of the performance capabilities of the state of the art most advanced ABEP concept suitable for drag compensation of a VLEO mission. These two evaluations require a previous exhaustive study and description of the current and historical ABEP concepts and other propulsion systems suitable a mission with this characteristics